Needless to say, I got back to camp as quickly as possible. “You guys are crazy!” I shouted as I leaped from the car. The tyrannosaur was on the bed of the Amphibian, tied up with high-tension cables. It was a young one, “only” five feet tall and fifteen feet long. Its jaws were tied shut, and cables were stretched from its head to its feet to keep it from swinging its head around. All it could do in its condition was thrash its tail, five feet of which projected beyond the tailgate, and wave its short but stout arms in fury. It made a steady, muffled growling noise. A line of long, sharp-looking scales on its back stood up tall. Overall, it was the perfect image of outraged nature held temporarily in check.

“I must say,” I said, “I’m impressed that you were able to capture this animal alive. I’d be interested in hearing how you did it. More importantly, I very much want to know if any of you gave the slightest thought to whether or not we could keep this animal for almost two weeks!”

“We aren’t planning to keep it for two weeks,” Robertson said nonchalantly. He pointed to a signaling device that they had strapped to the creature’s tail. “We wouldn’t have brought it back to camp at all, if we had thought to bring this tracking device along. Our plan is to release the animal. It should lead us to the rest of the pack, saving us days of searching.”

“Sounds good to me,” I said, “but I’m not letting you release it anywhere near here. You have twenty minutes to do any additional research. After that, I’m driving it back to where you found it.” At that moment, the tyrannosaur managed to throw itself against the side of the Amphibian. For a moment, the vehicle tipped dramatically, then slammed back to the ground. “Give that thing more tranquilizers!” I ordered.

“There’s a little problem there,” Carlos said. “We didn’t give it tranquilizers. Robertson knocked it out with a 4-gauge plastic riot slug. It was the only option we had at the time, and Dr. Ramirez is reluctant to test our tranqs on an animal this big. We know absolutely nothing about the finer details of dinosaur physiology, so we can’t predict what affect the drugs we brought will have. Any given drug might be lethal, or useless, or get the dinosaur fighting mad.”

“That’s a problem,” I agreed. “But I’m willing to take the risk.” I listened carefully to the dinosaur. It was growling quietly, and swinging its tail. The dinosaur was obviously suffering from its hard knock. “Get an air gun and whatever tranquilizer you think will work best.”

Ramirez reluctantly filled a large number of darts with every tranquilizer we had. He chose a bird tranquilizer to use for his first shot. “Shoot it once,” I told him. “If it doesn’t go down, but seems to be getting drowsy, shoot it again with the same drug. If there is no effect, or if the animal becomes more violent, try a dart with a different tranq. If things really get out of hand, I’ll shoot it with this.” I hefted the Eliminator. Ramirez nodded reluctantly and fired a dart into the dinosaur’s thigh.

The dinosaur screeched and struggled to lift its head. The impact of the dart had upset it, but it soon began acting sluggishly. Its skin went from a reddish-brown color to a light tan. After five minutes, I decided that the first dose wasn’t enough. “Fire again,” I ordered. The second dart was almost too effective. The young carnivore whimpered, and immediately turned dusty white. In a matter of seconds, it collapsed, slamming its head against the back of the cab. The impact made the Amphibian lurch a few inches forward.

When the dinosaur was clearly unconscious, Carradine climbed into the back to examine its skin. I looked, too. Carradine pointed out large bumps placed at regular intervals on its skin. “These are enlarged scales, similar to those of a South American therepod called Carnotaurus, but even larger.” He prodded one of the bumps. “In fact, there could be actual bony material in here.” As he prodded, the bump and the skin around it turned pink. The tyrannosaur growled quietly, like a lion having a bad dream.

“If you want to see something really interesting,” Carlos called up, “take a look at its right side.” We did. Carradine whistled, and I tried not to be sick. Sometime in the recent past, something very large had tried to kill our captive. Three long scars ran down its ribcage. I gently touched one of the scars and felt a lump beneath the skin where a broken rib had healed imperfectly.

“A few feet further down,” I murmured, “and this guy would have lost his guts. This looks like a Deinocheirus attack.” I examined the scars more carefully. They went diagonally upward for about two feet before ending abruptly. I got the distinct impression that the attacker had had trouble striking low enough to injure the tyrannosaur.

“A full-grown Therizinosaurus might have inflicted these injuries in self-defense,” Carradine said. “But no—these scars look equally wide and deep. Therizinosaurs have one claw that is larger than the other. Besides, why would one of them attack from behind? Whatever did this was a predator, and only Deinocheirus answers the description.

“We have here an interesting opportunity to study Tyrannosaurus ontogeny. Its arms are significantly less robust than the largest fossil specimens. It is generally believed that the robust form represents a later stage of development, but it has been proposed that this represents differences between sexes, or even different species… Speaking of sexual differences, this animal has two possible display features which were absent on the one you photographed from the air. There is something like a horn developing over each eye, and then there is the crest along its back. There is no way to be sure without a dissection, but this is probably a male.”

I looked at the arm. It was half as long as mine, but more muscular, and I’m a big guy. Looking at the juvenile’s arm, I found it hard to imagine what an adult’s arm looked like. I had the unnerving realization that the animal could kill me with one swipe from its “puny” arm. “I think I’ll get out now,” I said. After climbing out of the bed, I asked Carlos: “Did you get anything else from the kill site you mentioned?”
“You bet,” Carlos said. “We found the remains of a sub-adult sauropod, like the ones you filmed from the airplane. Rivera said it was the species—What did you say it was, Luis?”
“Opisthoelecaudia,” Rivera said. “We also found a piece of a Nemegtosaurus skull.”

Carlos continued, “There wasn’t much left of the sauropod except bones. We couldn’t even find two of the legs. The tyrannosaurs probably ripped them clean off and carried them away. I’m sure they aren’t coming back, but there were little therepods all over the kill. I shot a couple of the little guys; they’re in the dissection tent right now. There’s a lot of trace data: footprints, shed teeth, teeth marks, everything. Carradine’s gonna love it. We brought back as many sauropod bones as we could. If we go back, we should try to get a few more.”
“Should be enough room. Let’s go,” I said. “By the way, whose idea was it to bring the tyrannosaur back to base camp?”
“It was mine,” Robertson said proudly.
I took the tranquilizer gun away from Ramirez and handed it to the billionaire. “In that case, you can sit in the back with the dinosaur.”

Carradine and Rivera sat with me in the cab of the Amphibian. Carlos, Carpenter and Wang followed in a Thing. They drove to the left of the Amphibian so that Wang could cover us with an Eliminator. Robertson also had one of the enormous rifles; I had ordered him to leave his revolver behind. The trip was uneventful, until we reached the river. At first, I thought the object in our path was a half-submerged boulder. Then it started moving. Muddy water streamed off its spiky, armor-clad body as it strode out of the shallows and onto the shore. I was so alarmed that it took me a moment to recognize the creature before me as an ankylosaur. It was almost seven feet tall and well over twenty feet long. “Rivera,” I said hoarsely, “we brought along a few armor-piercing rounds for the Eliminators. You can recognize them by their green tips. Open the glove compartment and see if we have any.”
“We do,” he said. At that moment, the ankylosaur squawked like a ten-ton parrot and moved toward us.

“If we shoot it, can we go over it?” I said to Carlos
“Sure, we could,” Carlos answered sardonically. “You could drive a Thing over a bed of nails. But those spikes on its side’ll tear up the cleats, and do you want that bumpy a ride with a live carnosaur on board?” The ankylosaur stopped in its tracks and squawked again. I got an all-too-close look at its fantastically bony head. I heard an ominous rumble from the tyrannosaur. “Here’s what we’ll do,” Carlos continued. “Let’s try to intimidate it by honking our horns at it. If that doesn’t work, we’ll shoot it and try to find a way around.”

“Sounds like a good plan,” I said. I opened the rear window of the cab and handed Robertson a couple of armor-piercing rounds. Then I started honking. The ankylosaur squawked, louder than before, and started swinging its clubbed tail. “If it even starts to turn around,” I bellowed, “shoot it!”

Carlos drove the Thing forward with the horn blaring one long, continuous note. “Move, ya dumb dinosaur!” he shouted. I winced and covered my eyes, expecting carnage to ensue immediately. But the tactic seemed to work. The ankylosaur backed up a few paces, though it bellowed again to save face. I put the Amphibian into its lowest gear and drove directly at the dinosaur, with the horn still blaring. It backed up even further, into the shallows. Seeing that I could intimidate it, I changed course and began forcing it to the right, away from the ford.

“Go around us!” I shouted to Carlos. “I can hold it back!” Carlos drove the Thing through the shallowest part of the river. He gave one last derisive honk as he reached the far shore. I drove across next. The ankylosaur let out a long bellow. I almost ordered Robertson to shoot, but told myself that it wasn’t making any hostile moves. There must have been something I missed. Just when we had made it past the dinosaur, it charged at us like a living torpedo. Its massive head, backed up by the full force of its enormous body, smashed into our right flank. The Amphibian spun 180 degrees. I heard a splash; that was Robertson falling overboard. I also hear water sloshing in through the damaged tailgate. The Amphibian’s nose rose high out of the water. Nevertheless, I could see the ankylosaur very well as it reared up and crowed in triumph. My heart almost stopped when the tyrannosaur roared back. The cables must have come loose!

I frantically threw the Amphibian into full reverse. The ankylosaur might not attack again if I made such a gesture of submission, and once I got near shore, I could lower the tailgate with a push of a button and release the tyrannosaur. I was alarmed but not surprised when I saw Robertson dogpaddle in front of me. The Eliminator was slung over his shoulder. In an outrageous display of optimism, he gave me an “OK” sign. When the ankylosaur came after us again, he somehow managed to get off a shot. He missed, and the recoil ducked him under the water, but the noise scared the ankylosaur away.

There was a thump as the tyrannosaur kicked the tailgate. I went ahead and pushed the button, hoping to spare the tailgate from further damage. The tyrannosaur climbed out with a splash and immediately waded to shore. It approached the Thing, but thought better of it when Robertson, just then swimming ashore, fired a shot over its head. I saw its hide turn tan with green spots as it fled into the bush. “Let’s go!” Robertson said. “We only have an hour before dark.”

We ventured out to the sauropod kill. There was indeed not much left except bones. When we arrived, we found about a dozen small dinosaurs feeding on the kill. Most were a beaked type with big triangular crests on their forehead, two meters long and 70 centimeters tall at the hip. These mainly chewed on the more fragile bones. “Ovilaptoh mongoliensis,” Wang said. As we watched, one of the small therepods snapped a bone with its powerful beak. It then began sucking out the bone marrow, making disgusting slurping sounds in the process. Another carnosaur shrieked at us. It was of a different, slightly smaller type, with an ordinarily-shaped head and scythe-like claws on its toes. “Bologovia,” Wang said. “They were not here before. They must hunt at dusk.”

Carlos took aim at one of the Borogovia, which ran away before he could shoot. He killed an Oviraptor with his second shot, scaring away the rest of the scavengers.

I stared in awe at the scattered bones of the sauropod. It may not have been an adult, but it was no baby either. In life, it had been no less than 30 feet long. The carnosaurs feeding on it had kicked in its rib cage and consumed the heart and most of the lungs. There was an enormous hole where one of its hind legs had been ripped out of its socket. Rivera casually explained that the species had unusually large hip sockets that allowed it to stand on its hind legs more easily than other sauropods. Carradine photographed the numerous teeth marks in the bones, and pulled out seven shed Tyrannosaurus teeth. One of the teeth was imbedded in the tendons of the neck.

“This appears to be the fatal wound,” Carradine said. “They couldn’t have done it to a healthy sauropod, though. It must have already been wounded and exhausted, with its head held much lower than usual. I wouldn’t be surprised if its belly had been ripped open. The tyrannosaurs probably ambushed it, inflicted a few bites, and then followed it while blood loss wore it down. It could have taken hours, even days, but the outcome was virtually inevitable. Bad way to go.”

He carefully examined the tyrannosaur tracks that were all over the kill site. “There’s so much overlapping of tracks that it’s hard to find identifying characteristics for individual track makers,” he said, “but there were clearly at least six tyrannosaurs at the site, ranging from juvenile to adult size. There are no signs of infant tracks. The missing limbs may have been carried back to a nest.”
“If it exists,” I said thoughtfully, “the nest is bound to be heavily guarded.” I shuddered at the thought of dealing with six of the monsters at once.

Our trip back to camp was uneventful, as was the evening. Zapata spent a large portion of the night showing us the small animals he had collected from his traps. There were strange lizards with just a few teeth, one unlucky toothed bird, and a lot of small mammals. The mammals, for the most part, were mouse- or shrew-like creatures that were hard to distinguish from modern ones.

I listened attentively to Zapata’s descriptions of them. He had divided them into two groups: Metatherians and Eutherians. The Metatherians, he explained, were ancestors of modern marsupials, while the Eutherians were the ancestors of modern placentals. In the Maastrichtian, however, most Eutherians still had a marsupial-type reproductive system. Surprisingly, Dianna listened to all this without arguing. I suspected that it was because Dr. Zapata was threatened by her. Ever since the group started training, he had been singling her out for his attention. So far, his behavior had been subtle and totally platonic, but Dr. Rivera expected his colleague to try to seduce her before the trip was over. “His exploits in the field are legendary,” Rivera had told me. As I watched Zapata answer a few questions from Dianna, I decided that it was about time to tell her about his reputation.

Dr. Zapata was very excited about two specimens that he was keeping alive in plastic cases. One was a squirrel-like animal that he believed to be a primitive primate. “I actually collected two; I have already dissected the other,” he said. He pointed to the other case. “This animal is even more significant. It is a monotreme.”

Dianna looked confused. The name sounded familiar, but it took me a moment to recall what it meant. “You mean an egg-laying mammal, like a platypus?” I asked. The scientist nodded. “I thought they were restricted to Australia, even in prehistoric times.”

“Not true,” Zapata said. “A few monotreme fossils have been found in South America and Antarctica. This is the first evidence that they reached Asia as well.”

I peered closely at the creature. It was certainly a strange creature. It was the size of a cat, which was as big as Cretaceous mammals got, and looked like a cross between a mole and a Tasmanian devil. As I bent down for a closer look, it snarled and took a snap at me. Its broad, hairless snout bumped harmlessly against the transparent lid of the case. The creature began to thrash about, hissing like a snake and scraping the case with its large claws and scimitar-like fangs. I noticed that its legs were splayed to the sides, like a lizard’s. The egg-laying platypus and echidna had a lizard-like posture, I recalled, because they had the same limb structure as reptiles. It was supposed to be because they were very primitive mammals that retained some features of their reptilian ancestors. However, the creature before me looked like an unusually sophisticated killing machine. The tiny primate heard the commotion, and began scrabbling desperately at the sides of its case. It obviously wanted to get as far away from its ferocious neighbor as possible. I pondered the fact that the primate was a possible ancestor of humanity, and wondered how it had survived long enough to leave descendants.

“That thing looks like a furry lizard from hell,” Carlos remarked. “Hey, that would make a good scientific name: Pilosaurus infernali’.” (When Zapata wrote the paper that formally described the species, that’s actually what he called it!)

The next day, it rained so hard that we had to spend the whole day in camp. The day after that, it rained even harder. We spent two more days waiting for the water to recede.